


Ten

by Isilien_Elenihin



Series: Amaranthine [2]
Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Amaranthine, F/M, Warehouse 13 fusion fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-30
Updated: 2014-03-30
Packaged: 2018-01-17 13:11:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1388884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Isilien_Elenihin/pseuds/Isilien_Elenihin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A vignette from Amaranthine, my Warehouse 13 au.  There is always fallout from a regeneration.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ten

**Author's Note:**

> Nothing you recognize belongs to me.

"You never said." Her voice is soft as she joins the Doctor at the window, staring out over Univille blanketed by snow. They've gotten at least 12 inches in the last hour alone; no one is going anywhere today. The town has ground to a halt beneath the softly falling flakes and stillness has settled down like a thick, white shroud. She leans her head against his shoulder and then his arm is wrapping around her back before he has time to think about boundaries (that he's already broken) and regrets (that he has in spades already) and fears (that this will somehow tarnish what they have, what they are to each other).

"How many times have you changed your face like that?"

He's been waiting for this, the inevitable questions that follow regeneration. For a while he thought he'd escaped, that she would be too wrapped up in learning the ins and outs of the Warehouse to confront him. Rose Tyler is clever, though, and even in this new body she knows him far too well. There's a part of him that wants to deflect, to change the subject to snow and its many various uses (sledding, making snow angels, building snow men, snowball fights, etc) and a part of him that wants to run as fast and as far as he can. He is, after all, a coward–every time.

There's another part though, a larger part, that is tired of being afraid. When he met her he was wounded, bleeding out–but she helped him bandage it up, helped him heal until the wound was a scab, and then a scar. Stretching a scar hurts, but growth occasionally causes pain. She has changed herself, taken on a duty that frightens and exhilarates him–because they both belong to something so much larger than themselves, because as long as she is Caretaker, time will not touch her.

The thought that she might outlive him is strangely liberating.

"Nine," he says, and rests his cheek against the top of her head. "This is my tenth body."

She is quiet for a moment, watching the snow fall inexorably down. "How may do you have left?"

"Three. Thirteen bodies, one for every number on a clock face, plus my original."

She covers the hand resting on her shoulder with one of her own. "How?"

It's a long story, and one that he may never fully tell. There is too much–his father and his brother and the Sundial and the War–far too much to divulge now, but he owes her an answer, at least. "An artifact. My father found it when I was just a boy, tucked away in trader's caravan. He liked old things and puzzles and this was both." The Doctor can see it in his mind, cradled in his father's hands like something incalculably precious and his fingers tighten around her, dig into her shoulder. "He studied it for months, until he finally discovered its secret, that when used correctly it would grant a person twelve lives beyond their own. He thought it was a gift, but it wasn't–it was a curse. My home was beautiful, Rose. I wish you could have seen it. The sunset turned the sky a brilliant burnt orange and the sea was like glass on a clear day and when the wind blew all the leaves on the trees were silver." His arm falls from her shoulders but she catches his hand. "Stasis, that was the price. One tiny town full of people who lived too long and would not change and now–now it's gone. There's no one left."

"There's me," she reminds him, and there's no way his body can contain the love he feels for her. It swells within him like the tide.

"Yes," he agrees and manages a smile.

Rose lays her free hand on his cheek, anchoring him to the present, to this moment that stretches on as she searches his eyes for something only she can see. And then she stands on her tiptoes and presses her lips against his and for a moment there is music in his head, a song that he has known all his life. It is the lullaby his mother sang when he was a child, the wind as it moved through the forest. It is the drums and the pipes on a cold winter's night inside his father's house, the soft humming Romana was so fond of, the songs Susan used to recite for him, the strange music that Melanie used to listen to on the radio. It is the waves against the rocks and Rose, singing in the shower.

"Can you hear it?" she asks when he pulls away. There is gold in her eyes, beneath the brown, and a knowledge that is far older than he is. "The Warehouse knows you, Doctor, and as long as She exists you will never be alone."


End file.
